With the widespread use of laboratory test ordering systems, the number of test items requested by the doctor in charge of a patient may lead to automatic calculation of the amount of samples to be collected, whereby the number of test tubes for collecting samples from the patient is determined. A plurality of these test tubes containing the collected samples may contain the same type of sample for the same process. These samples are generally called multiple test tube samples, with the same sample barcode ID pasted on the test tubes containing the samples. One of the purposes of collecting multiple test tube samples is to alleviate the burdens on the patient who might otherwise be subjected to repeated sample collection in case of a sample being found to be insufficient in quantity after tests have started.
The sample transport system uses carriers each capable of carrying one or a plurality of test tubes containing testing samples such as blood or urine in particular, and transports the test tubes to a target processing unit. Conventional sample transport systems that use carriers each capable of carrying a plurality of test tubes could implement the same processing on the samples as each other by loading the system in question with one carrier transporting multiple test tube samples.
The sample transport system provided by Patent Literature 1 establishes purpose-specific carriers each capable of carrying a plurality of test tubes, thereby implementing simultaneous processing in handling multiple test tube samples and in aliquoting them in particular.
There exists another sample transport system, such as one provided by Patent Literature 2, which uses racks each capable of holding a plurality of test tubes and which has a plurality of carriers mounted on a loading section, the carriers being defined as a rack group. The system is designed to extract one rack after another, which can be processed by referring to system load information.
Meanwhile, the sample transport systems that use carriers each transporting only one test tube have not implemented performing the same processing as each other on the samples contained in a plurality of sample test tubes. One reason for this is that despite the presence of a blood collecting system or a testing system which manages the number of samples collected from each patients so as to identify the test tubes to be identically processed, a control system has yet to be established, which would allow these test tubes to be transported and handled for the purpose of identical processing.
As a background of the above circumstances, the sample transport systems utilizing carriers each carrying only one test tube could shorten processing time and deal with various modes of operation by letting the transport destination of each carrier be selected flexibly in accordance with system status. However, there was a possibility that the conveyor line in use could be occupied by multiple carriers being transported.